Wednesday, 24 October 2012

Torch Lite

Today I returned to Newtyle quarry with Craig Holden. Craig has been meaning to go dry tooling for quite a while now and he is very strong so should be able to get quiet good once hes had a bit of practice.
I started by remembering the moves on Torch Lite (M11). I managed the route in 3 sections. Afterwards I belayed Craig on Fast and Furious before returning to try Torch Lite again.
My second attempt of the day went very well and before I knew it I was past my previous best of linking from the start, the 8th bolt, and I managed to push on and get to the good feet and hooks and take a sort of rest. I struggled a bit getting to the final clip as I missed the hold a few times but I managed to stop myself from falling. I finally managed to latch it, clipped the bolt, worked my feet up high into a position where I could push off and went for the last hold. From there I could swing my feet onto the hanging slab, which I almost missed, and reach over my head to clip the lower off.
I was completely boxed after doing this I could barely untie my knot.
I'm really pleased to get this climb, and reasonably quickly. I think that was my 7th attempt every. I had two back at the start of they year, one after linking FandF recently then two attempts on Saturday, then got it on my second attempt today. I think my next objective will be DTS Spirit as it is nice and short.
After climbing TL I went to try and demo some of the moves on FandF to Craig. I got to the 6th clip and then got the rope hooked around my axe which cause me to drop it. I then took and dropped my other axe. When I went back to pick them up I found that the trigger had snapped off one of them, which I wasn't too pleased about.

(these pictures are from my last visit to Newtyle but I didn't get any today, and I thought I should probably put some in here)